


This round goes to you

by Labarch



Series: Peaks and Pitfalls [2]
Category: Lupin III
Genre: Albert d'Andrésy: Kinkshamer Extraordinaire, Claustrophobia, Drinking Games, Gen, M/M, Survival, Thriller, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 05:04:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17094422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Labarch/pseuds/Labarch
Summary: When a heist goes south, Albert has no choice but to rely on Lupin's erratic methods and questionable work ethics to come and save the day. How a drinking game got involved in the whole plan is anyone's guess.





	This round goes to you

**Author's Note:**

> Please have this early Christmas gift, written within small pockets of procrastination and commute over the course of nearly six bleeding months. Have I mentioned that I am a slow writer? XD This is technically a continuation from Shelter of Wolves, but it also works as a standalone. 
> 
> This could be considered slightly NSFW. Potential trigger warnings include claustrophobia, some violence and gore, non-graphic sexual themes, graphic descriptions of puberty, non-graphic mentions of starvation and torture, slight homophobia and misc hurtful language, quite a lot of swearing. If you find anything in the fic that should be added as a warning, please let me know: content warning is not an exact science, but it's a useful one and I want to do it as thoroughly as I can! 
> 
> Also contains: WAY too much information about Lupin. See, Part 5 was fun but weirdly reluctant to dig into its own plot. So. I took a tiny shovel and dug through layers of speculations all the way to the centre of the Earth, as you do.
> 
> Much love!

**This round goes to you**

The phone call from Albert reaches him at five something in the morning – the ringtone set for him an unmistakable chanting of the word « nope » in a sarcastic monotone.  _You better not have woken me up just to gloat, you prick_ , Lupin thinks blearily, pulling the cover from over his head with a groan.

He reaches for the phone in the semi-darkness and picks up on the fifth or seventh ring. He just about manages to mumble a “Wassup?” before the sound of Albert’s voice registers. It sounds thin and strained, and at first the jumbled string of words is lost among his ragged breathing. It takes half a second for the meaning of the sentence to filter through:

“Pick up the phone pick up the phone please please  _please_ pick up the goddamn phone…”

“Albert?” He says, rubbing at his eyes – has to make sure, his voice is so distorted by poor signal and his agitation that Lupin barely recognizes it.

“Oh thank God, thank fuck,” there’s a rush of statics as Albert sighs right against the receptor. “Where…where are you right now?”

“I’m home,” he replies, home being at the moment a tiny studio under a roof. The landlord is an informant of the d’Andrésy’s: the guy is indebted to the organization since they bailed his kid out of jail, as far as Lupin has gathered. He is pretty fond of the place –the stove doesn’t break much, and the one skylight is just large enough that he can crawl through and sit on the rooftops on a clear night, to take in the Paris views and the echoes of chatter. “What’s the matter, man? You sound like hell. Heist went that bad?”

“I… You could say that,” the other says, carefully neutral. “Look, I’ve just shared my location with you. How quickly can you get there?”

Lupin straightens up with a startled laugh.

“Hah, you admit it just like that? Sounds like you got your ass kicked alright. Why do you need me to pick you up, didn’t you have an emergency team?”

“I did. They’ve been sent elsewhere. The traffickers… One of our informants must have been a mole. They were on to us from the start. This place is just some trap they’ve laid. I’m… I’m stuck. The roof has caved in. There’s not that much air. Lupin, when can you get to me?”

He sounds so resigned, his voice doesn’t even rise in anger as he ignores the taunts and repeats the request. Lupin’s smug grin is wiped clean off his face. He jumps off the bed and hurriedly puts on whatever clothes he can find scattered on the floor among piles of books, gadgets and loose pieces of wire.

“I’m forty-five minutes away”, he says, glancing at the map on his phone. “I’ll take your spare car and be right on my way. Are you hurt? How long can you hold on in there?”

For one panic-stricken second, he thinks he hears Albert’s breath hitch in his throat. But then his dry chuckle reassures him a little.

“As long as it takes, I guess. Not like I’m going anywhere. I don’t think anything is broken – lucky, if you want to call it that. I can still move my fingers –my arm is stuck under some metal shelf, elbow to shoulder, and it’s also blocking my left side. And I’ve got one leg trapped under something. It doesn’t feel like I’ve bled much. But it’s pitch black. I don’t know how bad it is. And I don’t know how much air I’ve got left.”

“I’m sure you’ve got plenty,” Lupin cuts in, shoving his emergency cigarette pack in his pocket and various other, potentially useful items into a backpack on his way to the door.  “You can’t be buried too deep if your call is coming through. I’d be surprised if you were completely sealed off. Forty-five minutes, tops!” He slams the door so Albert can hear. “You can start the timer now: four minutes ‘til I make it to your car.”

Another thing he likes about his new place is the narrow, twisted staircase, with its uneven steps worn in the center to half their original height. Normally he’d have to maneuver around old ladies with their shopping bags, but this early in the morning he has it all to himself: he lets gravity do most of the work, the fall so steep it feels like running down the face of a cliff.

The wind hits his face as he exits the building, his steps echoing through the walls of an empty Paris, painted dark blue by the lingering night. The streetlights are on, the stars are fading. It’s too early still for the streets to smell like sewers; the sharp, icy smell of dawn is undercut by a whiff of freshly baked bread. His stomach rumbles longingly, but he just races across the cobblestone street to the nearest free service bicycle parking rack.

There are only two bikes left: he is lucky to find even that many, given that his place is at the top of a steep slope where most people can’t be bothered to lug up a machine out of the goodness of their hearts.

He wrenches one free and hurls himself down the street at full speed, letting out a brief yell of delight into the phone. The sky is clear, the streets are all his, it’s a lovely morning. The vibrations of the bike against the cobblestone rattle him to the bone and send stray jolts of pleasure up his spine.

When the street veers abruptly to the right, he leans on his side to guide the protesting bike into an ear-splitting skid and kicks at the wall with a loud “WHACK” that bounces him all the way back onto the opposite pavement. He reels back from the shock, wobbles precariously as his heavy backpack almost throws him out of balance, and he is off again.

“What the hell was that?” Albert all but shrieks.

Lupin throws his head back and laughs.

“That’s me making good time!”

“Did you just  _throw yourself at a wall_?”

“Yes, but only sideways. Did that scare you?”

“What scares me is that if you crack your skull open like a loon I’ll be left in here to fucking suffocate.” He sure is swearing a lot today. “So if you could stop clowning around for once in your goddamn joke of a life…”

“And tops!” Lupin interrupts, screeching to a halt next to a rental storage unit and throwing the abused bike aside. “How’s that for making good time?”

The storage unit is incongruously stuck next to an array of cute little houses and antique shops tightly squeezed together, with blooming flowerpots on the windowsills and small bird shelters nailed to the walls. Through the lacy curtains he can see a bunch of animal figurines and old-fashioned furniture, even a fireplace. It’s on his to-do list for this month to break into one of those houses one night, just to check how lost in time he will feel when he wanders inside. Maybe he’ll nick a packet of biscuits or a small elephant as a souvenir.

For now he just jogs to one of the bird huts and retrieves a car key and a clicker from a hidden compartment. He ducks under the storage unit door before it is done rolling up and goes straight to the compact city car waiting inside.

“Five minutes in, forty to go,” he continues as he turns the key in the ignition, throwing his backpack onto the passenger seat. He releases the handbrake and sends the car rushing onto the street like a horse out of its racing box. “Good thing you tanked your heist before rush hour! Now let’s see how many red lights I can burn before sunrise.”

“You have no right to laugh at me, and you better not crash my car,” Albert grumbles back at him. “You are the worst person to have in a crisis, you know that?”

Lupin puffs out his cheeks in annoyance.

“Screw you man, I’ve gone from zero to a hundred right out of bed and I haven’t even had breakfast yet. I’d like to see you do better. Besides, I would hardly call that a crisis – talk about being overdramatic…”

“Screw  _you_ , I am stuck under a warehouse, my shoulder hurts like hell and the only one who can get me out is a suicidal lunatic! I’ll call that a crisis if I damn well want to!”

 “Wah wah fucking wah, my name is Albert d’Andrésy, my life is real hard, and I’m so busy whining about it all day I can’t even remember the criminal organization I’m supposed to be ruling,” Lupin retorts in an overly nasal impression of the other’s voice. He crosses the Seine and veers left to cut across the large expanse of the roundabout at Porte de Saint Cloud. The streets are still blissfully empty. “You’re being silly. Even if I did crash, you’d still have a hundred options to get out without my help. Why didn’t you call Gaston instead if you hate me that much?”

“Gaston would have sent me straight to you, he worships the ground you walk on,” Albert says, the sharp venom in his voice startling Lupin. “I thought I’d cut the middle man. And it’s not like I’m swimming in bodyguards. My informants won’t lift a finger for me, that’s not their job. With the back-up team gone, you are the only one in the area who has got even the slightest bit of field experience.”

“Still,” Lupin says – he struggles to continue, briefly distracted by the hostility displayed against Gaston. He almost wants to derail the conversation and jump to the guy’s defense, because if Albert thinks the old forger is playing favorites, he is dead wrong. Whenever Lupin comes to hang out at the workshop, he knows he will have to hear all about what a precocious multi-talented marvel Albert is until he wants to scream. It’s a testament to how cool Gaston is, and how much Lupin wants to learn from him, that he soldiers through the ordeal as often as he does.

It baffles him, how little Albert seems to like him back.

But, he decides to stick to his point in the end. “Still, you’ve got a phone, and you’ve got a brain. You want field guys? Call the emergency services. They’ll dig you out.”

That silences Albert at last.

“You do know they would call the police, right?”

Lupin shrugs.

“It’d be a last resort, sure, but it beats dying. It shouldn’t be that difficult to bail you out later. We could even grease some hands to wipe your record clean if that’s a problem for you. Gaston has done as much for a bunch of your informants already, right? So what’s the difference?”

More silence on Albert’s side. It’s only now that Lupin realizes how loud his partner’s breathing is sounding, coming out as little explosions of statics through the phone. Finally, he lets out something between a scoff and a laugh.

“Heh. Maybe. I didn’t think of things that way.”

“Damn straight you didn’t. And it won’t come to that anyway, because I’m a much better driver than you and I won’t crash in a million years.”

“Pff, you wish,” Albert says, but his voice is softer, the jab half-hearted. There’s a rustle, like he is trying to rub at his face and scratch his hair using the fingers still holding the phone –that’s right, he only has one arm free. “Okay. I’ll try to remember if there’s anyone nearby I can rope into this somehow. You won’t be able to dig through all that rubble by yourself.”

“Sure, you do that,” Lupin says, clicking his tongue in appreciation. “But I’ll manage either way. Let’s see, I’ve got…” He glances at the backpack by his side and studies its various bulks. “A claw hammer, a buzzsaw, a bunch of ropes and a flashlight. And there’s the jack in the car if I need to lift stuff. I should be able to get through concrete and metal alright. And if I need extra hands, I can feed passer-byes some story and get them to help.”

Albert lets out a baffled sort of grunt when Lupin rattles off his equipment list, but by the end, it has shifted to the amused noncommittal sound from before.

“That’s good,” he says. He sighs, then, a deep shuddering sound, like he has been holding his breath for hours and the tension is catching against his throat as it tries to escape. “That sounds good.”

It’s not exactly a praise or even a thank-you, but Lupin finds himself humming contentedly anyway, his annoyance from before forgotten.

“All part of being a first-class thief, my friend. Just sit tight: I’ll get you out before you know it, and you’ll owe me a drink. I’m” he glances away from the road for half a second to check his map as he enters the highway, “thirty-three minutes away. You can play a game on your phone or something to pass the time until I get there.”  

“Are you stupid? That would waste the battery.”

Lupin rolls his eyes, and starts slaloming past the few cars on his lane. He can see more traffic ahead –he can’t believe that many people are up and about and leaving Paris so early in the morning. Is it the start of an extended weekend or a school holiday already? It seems early in the year for a spring break.

“Sure, suit yourself. Then put your phone on energy saving mode and, I don’t know, jerk off or something.”

The sound of naked outrage on the other end of the line is hysterical.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” Albert seethes.

“Not at all. You still got one arm free, right? And it’s not like you can do anything useful in there until I get to you, so. You might as well use the time to cool off. I would.”

Indistinct sounds come out of the phone as Albert struggles to get words out.

“I can’t believe you… Of  _course_ you would,” he says at last, mincing the syllables like they taste foul, and he has to spit them out individually. “Now listen you weirdo: I don’t know if you have noticed, but you have some serious issues, as in you should get yourself checked, because it’s not  _normal_  to be as much of a god damn sex addict as you are. There’s a time and place, okay, so you can keep your messed up advice to yourself.”

Albert stops to catch his breath, but then a short bark of disbelieving laughter escapes his lips, and he is off on a rant again:

“Oh, and since you bring up the subject: I swear to God if I ever have to share a flat with you again, you better learn to turn the damn volume down, because it’s a  _problem_ and I shouldn’t have to keep headphones on until I get an ear infection to tune you out.”

 

Lupin shrugs exaggeratedly, for no one’s benefit but his own, and does his best to reply in a casual tone despite the slight reddening of his cheeks.  _Don’t know if you have noticed_ , what a joke.

“So? If it bothered you that much, you should have said so right away; it’s not like it’s weird. Anyway, you’re gay and stuff right? Aren’t you into hearing guys do that sort of thing?”

“This! This right there!” Albert’s voice rises almost to a yell. There’s a faint thumping sound like he is kicking at the ground with his free leg. “I object! I shouldn’t have to listen to you when you’re jerking off like a freak  _or_  when you’re saying homophobic crap! Why are you still here?”

“Geez, I wonder. If you’re going to be like this, maybe I should leave you to it and go get myself a coffee instead.”

“And I’m not,” Albert goes on like he hasn’t heard the interruption, “in a million years…” He is wheezing a little now, and keeps getting cut off by short, manic giggles. “This place could collapse over my head any minute for all I know –so –so I am entitled to some dignity, alright, and –and  _I refuse to be found dead with my pants down!_ ”

“I don’t know man,” Lupin says, grinning broadly now: it’s a good sign in his books when people start making grim jokes when backed into a corner. Means the adrenaline is flowing the right way. “It’d be a riot at your funeral. I’ll write the eulogy for you and everything.”

“Oh no, you’re not getting anywhere near my funeral service, you menace,” Albert gasps out. “I’ll have you shot on sight. My funeral will be an inspiring and dignified moment, no sex maniac allowed, and…”

That’s when Lupin enters the tunnel, and the call gets cut short.

The speed limit is reduced in there, and the traffic is denser than before. Lupin has to slam his foot onto the brake at the last minute to fall in line with the cars plodding along in front of him. He stares at the crossed out symbol on his phone, punches the wheel once in useless rage, as he realizes which tunnel he has just taken.

Fuck.

This place is a good ten kilometers long. He’ll be stuck in there for anywhere up to ten minutes.

Fuck. He should have warned Albert. He didn’t think of it, didn’t think their call would go on past the walls of Paris. What had they even been talking about? It feels like they were just yelling nonsense at each other.

The car feels very silent without Albert’s raging voice ringing in his ear. Lupin blinks in the artificial light like he has woken from a fever dream. His heart is pounding, with what he now realizes is second-hand panic. He takes a couple deep, steadying breaths and looks around to the vehicles on either side of him. He sees bikes strapped to the roofs, balloons, beach toys and large suitcases in the trucks – so people are going away on holiday after all. In the car up ahead on his left, he sees a child with dark hair, maybe five or six, fast asleep against the rear window. As Lupin overtakes the car, the woman in the passenger seat lifts her face from her book and throws a disapproving glare at the phone still clenched in his hand. She has nice, thick curls framing her face, and the vertical line of discontent across her forehead makes her, if anything, prettier. Lupin throws her a wink and drives on.

It’s going to be fine, he decides. He slumps back against his seat and drops the phone onto his lap, face up so he can keep one eye on the signal. He has already told Albert his arrival time. There isn’t much either of them can do until then. There wasn’t really a point in staying on the phone as long as they did.

Stripes of yellow light and semi-darkness wash over his face as he drives. He’s suddenly reminded how hungry he is –a brief stab of almost nauseous yearning. He has a few energy bars at the bottom of his backpack. They are probably squashed by the buzzsaw and the hammer by now, but they should still be edible. He doesn’t reach for them though: Albert might need them when he gets out. Lupin overtakes as many cars as he can, getting the occasional honk as he maneuvers around the dense traffic.

It’s going to be fine: Albert may be one shrill whiner when things don’t go according to his plans, but he does know his business, loath as Lupin is to admit it. Maybe by the time Lupin has passed the tunnel he will have found some other way out, just to spite him.

_Why are you still here?_ Albert has asked mid-rambling, and fair enough, he does wonder sometimes. Why he hasn’t moved on yet. It’s been over six months –he should be sick of France by now. Why he still calls himself by the name of that strange little organization, like it’s stuck to his skin and he can’t quite find the motivation to peel it off.

Lupin the Second – that’s what Gaston calls it, anyway, in reference to the near-mythical thief who allegedly built a worldwide criminal empire over a century ago, and transferred his trade secrets as coded notes to the d’Andrésy. Albert, for his part, seems to dislike calling it anything at all. The strength of the organization lies in its flexibility and in the very vagueness that surrounds it. Behind the illustrious name, Lupin has found, there is little more than a skeleton crew and a loose network of informants and black market sellers, a couple crooked cops, and an unsteady supply of temporary hired hands. The hierarchy is deliberately fragmented: most members have no direct contact with either Albert or Gaston, or have only met them in disguise. They can cut off entire operating branches at any moment, should they get found out or infiltrated by enemies, like a lizard shedding its own tail to survive. The flipside is the lack of dedicated handymen: most of the heavy-lifting is done or supervised by Albert himself, with Gaston directing the logistics from his workshop. As neurotically careful as the guy may be when planning his heists, it does leave him exposed, especially if he gets separated from the hired help like today.

So, Lupin is still around, and he doesn’t examine why too often. The easy answer is that staying with them is not too constraining, and it’s less lonely. Gaston seems only too happy to take him under his wing like a kindly uncle. It’s been a while since he has had anything like a mentor figure and, while it may well make it that much harder to hit the ground running when things inevitably collapse around his ears, for now Lupin is willing to bask shamelessly in that easy comfort.

There’s also the constant nagging feeling that he has a score to settle with Albert, or something to prove, or what. No matter how much he feels that he would be better off on his own sometimes, that he should pack his things and head for some new faraway place, new sights, new faces and new adventures, and leave these two behind to fade in the distance – he doesn’t. Because it would feel like he’s running away somehow; like if he leaves now, he will feel Albert’s sharp eyes and mocking smile burn the back of his head for years and years to come. And it’s infuriating, how stuck it makes him feel, how antsy and strangely inadequate. And yet. There’s anticipation in there as well, the promise of a battle, or of something still unnamed: when he sits on the rooftop of this borrowed flat relishing the tranquil buzz of Paris, it feels like sitting in the eye of a storm.

It’s fine, right here, for now; he’ll wait to see where it all takes him.

The end of the tunnel is in sight. Lupin clenches his fist briefly in triumph –seven minutes, he’s done well. The signal on his phone slowly struggles back into life, on and off again. Lupin frowns at it uncomprehendingly when he sees five missed calls from Albert, and one from Gaston.

He comes out into the open air once more. The lightening sky expands on either side of him with a bit of pink on the horizon, and he immediately shifts gear and speeds to meet it.

“Nope nope nope nope nope” his own phone admonishes him blankly as he zooms past traffic to an emptier stretch of road.

Okay, he thinks as he hurriedly picks up, he really should change that dumb ringtone.

“Albert? What’s going on?”

“L…Lupin?” The other’s voice stumbles over his. It twists his stomach oddly to hear it. It is so different from only a few minutes ago, as though Albert were impersonating a stranger. He sounds disoriented and hoarse like he has been screaming himself raw. “Lupin, I… oh God, is that you?”

“Yeah – yeah, of course it is. Sorry about cutting the call, man, I just went through the longest tunnel on Earth. Er… are you alright? You tried to call me a million times, did something happen?”

“A tunnel,” Albert parrots back, like it’s a foreign word. “Why didn’t you warn me you were going through… Look, about what I said earlier, I, I didn’t mean…” More panting sounds right against the phone, harsh and pained. “I’ll – you can’t – please don’t hang up the phone again, just – just don’t.”

“What?” Lupin says, frown deepening. What does Albert even mean, what he said earlier? He can’t remember half the insults they were throwing back and forth before he entered the tunnel. “Are you saying I cut the call on purpose? What the hell? No, okay, don’t answer that: what’s going on in here? You sound awful. Can you breathe alright?”

“ _No I can’t fucking breathe!_ ” Albert’s voice scales all the way up to a scream. “Because I am buried alive, okay, and I can’t see anything, I can’t move, there’s dust everywhere and a slab of metal crushing my lung, that’s what the fuck is going on! You – you can’t just…” He interrupts himself, gasping and coughing. “I’ve called Gaston, he… it’ll take him hours to find a crew to come and get me – assuming they don’t get highjacked by my enemies like the first backup team – I, I don’t  _have_ hours, okay? I’m not holding on that long. The  _ceiling_ is not holding on that long. You’ve got to get me out!”

“Albert,” Lupin struggles for words. This is surreal. “Albert, calm down, you are breathing fine. I’m not hanging up the phone. I’m just over twenty-five minutes away. You’re almost out, I swear the ceiling’s gonna hold on…”    

“ _You don’t know that!_ You can’t promise that, don’t, don’t you dare coddle me!”

Albert’s voice actually breaks on the last couple words. Heavens help him, if he starts  _sobbing_  Lupin doesn’t know how anything will ever make sense again. He stares hard at the road and the flat line of the horizon, and tries to keep himself grounded. It’s dumb, instinctive empathy, he knows, that makes him want to freak out right along with Albert, but, it won’t help and he’s better than that. If there’s a sentence in any language that will drag his partner back to his senses, then he will find it – his fingers twitch on the wheel, as though grasping for the magic words.

“Albert,” he says again, forcing firmness into his voice, “I’ve got you. I’ve been buried under buildings tons of times, okay, I know what I’m about. It sucks but it happens to the best of us, so don’t sweat it. There’s no reason the ceiling will collapse if it has held on so far. And there’s no way you’ll run out of air in just half an hour. But you need to stay calm, and you need to trust me. Alright?”

He hears heaving breaths, scraping sounds, small muffled noises that sound alarmingly like whimpers. For a while, it feels like Albert is gathering his strength so he can start another screaming round. But in the end he scoffs weakly and murmurs:

“Sure. Sure, why not, I’ll trust you.” And then: “Please don’t hang up the phone.”

“I just told you I wouldn’t, you paranoid prick. Look, this isn’t going to work if we talk about depressing stuff the whole way. Let’s, I don’t know, let’s play a game.”

“A game. Sure.” Albert says flatly. “I’m seeing so many games around me right now. How to choose.”

“Oh shut up. We’ll improvise something, let’s see…” His face lights up as an idea dawns on him. “How about ‘Never have I ever’? Unless you are too chicken to risk it.”

“…We don’t have any alcohol.”

“We’ll keep a tally,” Lupin says, making it up as he goes. “We’ll find a bar once you’re out. Whoever has accumulated the most points at the end loses, and has to buy all the drinks for the winner. Sounds good?”

There’s the faintest “thump”, like Albert has let his head, or the hand holding his phone, or both, fall back to rest against the rubble. His voice sounds hollow when he replies at long last:

“Okay then. Never have I ever. Shoot.” 

 Lupin taps his finger on the wheel a few times in consideration.

“Alright,” he decides. “Since you’re all out of sorts today, I’ll start easy on you. Here’s one I’ve been wondering about: never have I ever gone to a Catholic summer camp.”

“A Catholic…where’s that even coming from?”

“Aren’t all old noble families in France massively religious?”

“That’s not even remotely how it works,” Albert says, and Lupin can practically  _hear_ the way he rolls his eyes. “But yes, fine. I’ve been sent there once or twice.”

“Aha, called it! That’s one drink for you. How was it anyway?”

“Awful. Predictably.”

Lupin giggles at the deadpan reply.

“I’d bet. People expecting you to go outside, have fun and make friends. That must have been traumatic.”

“That, and I had this feeling Jesus and I would disagree in a couple key areas.”

“Amen to that,” Lupin grins. “Righto, your turn. And make it interesting.”

There’s a long-suffering sigh.

“I don’t know,” Albert says at last. “I’ve never been a monkey-faced idiot. That should about cover it.”

“Albert, fuck off and play the game.”

“Right, right,” he mutters. There’s that rustling sound again as he rubs his hand against his hair and face. “I’ve never… I have never zip-lined off a building, I guess.”

“Oh, that’s a ton of fun, you should try it soon! One to one then. I’ve never been to a gay club.”

“And I presume you want a medal? But sure, two for me. And while we’re at it: I have never had sex with a woman.”

“Going for the easy win, I see.”

Albert actually sniggers at that, however briefly.

“No, actually, I had my doubts. You brag so much, and you are so busy doing it to yourself, I figured you might be hiding a blank scoring board under it all.”

“Why you little…” Lupin splutters, growing purple. “Well sorry to disappoint but that’s my drink. And if that’s how we’re playing, here’s an easy win for  _me_ : never have I ever sucked another guy’s dick.”

He isn’t sure what reaction he was expecting from the jab, but the lull in conversation and thoughtful hum from Albert isn’t it. The silence raises the hair on the back of his neck, though he can’t begin to guess why.

“That is…an interesting choice of phrasing. Alright then, I’ll drink to that.” His next sentence is darkened by what Lupin can only assume is a predatory grin. “I have never sucked my own, though.”

Lupin blanches. His half-second of hesitation is enough for Albert to erupt into sudden, hysterical laughter.

“Oh  _god_  you have,” he wheezes. “I don’t even know why I’m surprised. How did you even… God, no, that’s messed up, that’s not okay. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Riiiiiiiight, and I don’t take lectures from Catholic boy scout rejects, so can it. That’s three points each and my turn.”

“No no no no no no, wait up, I’m not done yet. So…” He interrupts himself once more to giggle and snort like a lunatic. Lupin is starting to think he preferred him when he was on the brink of a panic attack. “So…  _how was it?_ ”

Lupin sighs long-sufferingly and shakes his head.  _Well, he started this, didn’t he?_

“Honestly? It’s underwhelming, if you’ll believe that. Too much strain on the mid-section to really get into it.”

The sound on the other end of the line is so undignified Lupin has to smile despite his annoyance. Albert is usually such a stuck-up pain, the poor guy really must be fraying at the edges if he finds this dumb shit so funny. Lupin swears he hears him make some weird honking noise, and wipe snot off his face with his sleeve.

“That… that must have been devastating when you found out. After all that –all that effort…”

The rest of his sentence gets drowned in another fit of damp, nervous sniggers. Lupin has to step in with a new question, otherwise they’ll be stuck on this one the whole day.

Problem is, Albert actually starts distancing him in the next rounds. He gleefully guesses a string of semi-public places where Lupin has beaten off in the past, and makes a show of being scandalized by each of them. And because Albert himself is a boring,  _there’s-a-time-and-place_  kind of guy, Lupin’s attempts to retaliate fall flat. He tries to switch to a more general line of questioning, but that doesn’t help –turns out he has never gotten himself a tattoo (“That’s exactly the sort of stuff that lets the police identify you, stupid”), and that he has never been to a Pride (“Too obnoxious”). The other grows instantly annoyed at the subject change.

“Back to homosexuality so soon, are we? How about you mix things up a bit?” He says, all self-righteous like he hasn’t grilled Lupin for five solid minutes on nothing but his masturbation habits. “Here, I’ll do this one to save you the trouble: it may shock you but I have never cross-dressed.”

 “What, really? But isn’t that…”

“You know what? New rule. Every time you say “isn’t that a gay thing” or some other crap, you take five drinks.”

“I was going to say”, Lupin retorts, rolling his eyes, “isn’t that all part of being a master of disguise? Don’t tell me those secret Arsène Lupin notes only cover one gender?”

“Wait, you mean  _you_ ’ve done it?”

“Sure”, Lupin shrugs. “It saved my ass a bunch of times. And it’s fun. People fall for it like you wouldn’t believe. Say, we should have a closer look at those notes together: there’s no way your ancestor chickened out on cross-dressing, I’ll vouch for the guy. You must have missed something.”

“Tch, what would  _you_ know about what he would or wouldn’t do.”

“From what Gaston told me? He sounds like he knew how to have a good laugh; I can respect that.” Lupin actually tends to imagine the legendary thief as a younger, crazier version of Gaston, with Albert’s build and a monocle. He is weirdly fond of the mental image. “Too bad you didn’t inherit a sense of humor from him, instead of some dusty notebooks. Oh, oh, that makes me think of a good one: never have I ever added my own tricks to the Lupin secret notes.”

“My own…” Albert mutters. “No. No, I haven’t either. You drink.”

Lupin gives a slow, exaggerated whistle.

“Really man?” He goads. “What does that make you, his heir or his archivist?”

“I’ll do it in my own time,” Albert replies defensively. “The guy didn’t even have an organization of his own when he was my age, give me a break. My turn. I’ve never… I have never taken up a job in a kitchen.”

“Uh? Yeah, I’ve done a few of those. How did you guess?”

“That explains why you like making all these complicated dishes even though you have no taste buds and are willing to eat utter garbage yourself,” Albert replies readily, sounding smug. “And you always make too much of it. Like you are used to cooking in bulk.”

“I make a lot of it because I’m awesome at cooking and the world deserves to know. And posing as a kitchen hand is a great way to gather intel before a heist: they always have the best gossip. Okay, I’ve never…” Lupin wracks his brain desperately for something embarrassing to pin on Albert, but the jerk is slippery, damn him. “I’ve… never played with dolls as a kid?”

“Neither have I, take one drink,” Albert almost sing-songs. “And I’m counting that as homophobic, by the way, so you can take another five.”

“What!? No it wasn’t you jerk!”

 “I believe that’s for me to decide. Now. I’ve never…” There Albert stops to think, as though pondering how best to word the next dare. “I have never been a beggar in the streets as a child.”

There’s a brief silence between them, filled with the white noise from the road. Lupin can feel how the quality of the air around Albert has shifted, his breathing suddenly deep and quiet as he takes in that silence and turns it over in his head like a new puzzle piece. Nosy bastard that he is. Lupin smooths the surprised furrowing of his brow and laughs into the phone.

“Getting a bit heavy there, bud. That one is your drink.”

Albert lets out a disgruntled sound. Lupin sticks his tongue out at him and makes sure he can hear him do it. He then loses another point when it turns out Albert has never needed to sleep with the light on to ward off closet monsters.

“I have never sold drugs,” Albert presses again, but this time Lupin is ready for the line of questioning.

“I know, I know, Gaston showed me the ledger. Mostly art theft, no drugs, no weapon, no human trafficking. Very classy, I dig it.” His grin gets broader. “Your drink again. I have never, er, slipped and called a teacher “mom”?”

This time, Albert lets out a sound like he has just been stepped on. Lupin pumps his fist up and woops in elation.

“Caaaaalled it! Let me guess, were you, say, over fourteen and at the height of your goth phase when it happened?”

“I don’t have to answer that,” Albert grumbles, “and it is your first win in seven turns, so put a lid on that attitude. Also, don’t think I can’t tell you are hiding something.”

“No way, I am playing the game fair and square,” Lupin replies in his best relaxed voice. “Go ahead and shoot the next one.”

“I have never grown up in an orphanage.”

There is definitely challenge in Albert’s voice now. Lupin settles back into his seat, and lets the pause linger for effect.

He can’t help it, he is a little impressed. There is something so brittle about a city-bred thief like Albert, white-collared to the tip of his fingernails, mathematical and cautious; he looks like the kind of person who would cave in under pressure. And yet there he is, trapped in some dust-filled dark hole in a collapsed building, nursing bruises and sprained joints, and he decides now is a good time to go and dig up dirt on his rival.              

It’s not the first time Lupin has caught him trying to figure out what makes him tick. He has been paying an awful lot of attention to the languages Lupin uses lately, clearly keeping track of which ones come back more often. Lupin also suspects that Albert is teaching himself Japanese to eavesdrop on him –not that he has been able to catch him with a kanji book in his hands, but there is a particular alertness to his narrow, grey-gold eyes whenever the language comes up, that tells Lupin he is starting to decipher individual words among the blanket of foreign noise. And normally, he would be flattered at being so closely scrutinized, but. This  _is_  Albert, too observant by half and willing to go to unimagined lengths to take him apart and embarrass him. He will scratch and prod and dig his claws right under Lupin’s skin in a way that makes him tenser than he likes to admit.

There is a particular prank that still stings whenever he thinks back on it. He knew Albert was trying to spot gaps in his general knowledge, and he thought he was doing an okay job of catching up on his classic education while putting up a good front. He did  _not_ expect that the industrious son of a bitch would go as far as forge entire copies of law and history books with falsified dates, names and details, and leave them around for Lupin to find. He was none the wiser until he reached a chronology of French kings, all replaced by auto-portraits of Albert. At this stage, there was no telling how much drivel he had spoon-fed him.

The stunt left him with a visceral mistrust of all the books stored in the organization’s hideout, and any other book Albert might have touched. It got so bad he had to scout several libraries across Paris and far into the suburbs to cross-reference similar volumes and track the fake information. There are still some evenings when the memory stabs right through him, and he is left compulsively recounting the many, many times the bastard just  _happened_ to bring up history or law in a conversation, and then stood impassively as Lupin regurgitated his own made-up nonsense.

And yet, for all that Albert’s inquisitiveness brings him way too close for comfort sometimes, there is no denying the thrill of watching him grope for clues in the dark.

“Someone is looking for my tragic backstory,” he sing-songs, startling Albert out of his bated silence.

“Then that’s a yes,” he breathes, and then audibly jumps as Lupin barks with laughter.

“No, actually, that’s your drink again. It’s real cute that you are so concerned about me, but I actually had a perfectly healthy and happy childhood. Toughest thing I hit back then was puberty.”

He chuckles at the gnashed teeth and disbelieving splutters on the other end of the line, silently dares him to find even a trace of dishonesty in his voice.

There is none, is the neat trick, though he  _is_ catching Albert on a few technicalities.

Take begging, for instance. Sure, he was one prideful brat back then and drew the line at straight-up holding his hand out to beg, but, there are other ways to go about fleecing adults. Tailing tourists and acting extra cute in the hope of being handed sweets was fair game. He was also more than happy to run around selling stolen knick-knacks and made-up tour guides, had in fact trained a bunch of other kids to do the same until he had a whole network of miniature con artists and burglars at his command. Yet even as his business developed, he steered clear of the substance trade: for all his confidence, he was observant enough to sense the porous lines between drug and child trafficking, and knew better than to tread waters that might swallow him whole.

He even  _did_ have a happy, healthy childhood, all things considered. His first memories are hazy and bright, a cacophony of sounds and places. Mountains, long walks and little food, camps in the rain, and him in the middle, bright-eyed and indefatigable, deeply contented by the chaotic state of the world. The borders crossed on foot, the languages and accents that accumulated and merged in his mind, the faces that came and went, the official-looking people they hid and ran away from, all comforted him in the knowledge that he was uniquely equipped to adapt, charm and endure.

He remembers waking from a dreamless sleep in forests teeming with sounds, and picking up subtle clues even as he shakes himself awake to determine whether breakfast is ready or whether he must jump to his feet and run for his life. He remembers being taught to fish and lay traps and insulate a shelter, and to pick locks and pockets; being handed warm bread and shown tricks and sung songs to, and being thrown high up into the air as he gasps with laughter, but the faces from those early years are faint. He is not certain any of them were actually related to him. One of his carers at least must have been Japanese, the language was such a crisp and incongruous outlier among the bastardized mess of European languages he used to babble in back then. Child of runaway, he was taught to run. And once he saw a city he liked the look of, he ran there on his own.

He grew, and grew his trade with him, and traveled the world he meant to conquer. Soon enough he was bossing around men three times his age. Not that he terribly liked the company of adults, but it was a riot to watch them swallow their pride and do his bidding. And it’s funny, but Lupin can’t quite believe sometimes that this meteoric rise has stopped at all – like he has stumbled once and that power-hungry child has gone on ahead without him, perhaps to become some bull-necked, moustache-twirling evil overlord somewhere.

So let Albert try and dig up his past if he can: joke is on him, because Lupin would be hard-pressed to reveal anything of import even if he wanted to. His own age is a best-guess estimate: when he moved to settle in Milan, he might just as easily have been a very precocious six year old as an unusually small boy of ten. The secret –where did he read that line from? Something silly and depressing – is that there’s no secret. Not one he could easily put into words anyway.

He can afford to taunt Albert with hints and half-truths, because the truth is either too vague or too plain weird to be useful to anyone. Lupin could look his rival thief squarely in the eye and just blurt out this tragic backstory Albert so badly wants to hear, if he felt like it – _No, I mean it, puberty was hell, I almost lost my mind and died – but it was great, too, best years of my life –_ and Albert would only scowl and tell him to stop taking the piss.

And yet.

He fully expected that growing up would come with its share of trouble: there is an interesting number of people out there who will balk at the idea of harming a child, but will gladly send attack dogs after a teenager. He kept tabs on the subtle shifts in attitudes around him, waiting for the threshold point when his little criminal empire would become tempting enough of a mark, and when the taboo of his age would stop shielding him from his competitors. He was cheerfully paranoid of everyone and everything. The one thing he trusted unconditionally, back then, was himself.

Boy, does he know better now.

His growth spurt hit him virtually overnight, stretching muscles and joints almost to nothing. His spatial awareness was wrecked. He used to rely on his small, agile frame for break-ins and to outrun pursuers; suddenly his spindly arms and legs seemed to attract to themselves anything that could trap his sleeve, stub his toes or crash to the ground. He had never been ill a day in his life; suddenly he would black out if he stood up too fast, he had back pains like an old man, his joints popped out every other week. He was constantly cold, tired and uncomfortable: he couldn’t even sit down without his hipbones digging into the floorboards like a pair of skinny shovels.

He used to rely on his charisma to sweet-talk his way out of tight spots, but that option was clearly out of his reach, too: his voice broke so dramatically he could barely speak at all for weeks, and spent several months after  _that_ croaking away and widely jumping octaves. His lower range still sounds ever so slightly raspy; he doubts that will ever disappear.

The acne, thank the gods, has faded without scarring, but while it was there, it invaded his face, his shoulders and a sizeable chunk of his back like a biblical plague. It got so bad he used to smell faintly of pus, in a way deodorant and cologne were powerless to mask.

And he isn’t even touching the subject of his libido yet.

His criminal empire crumbled as soon as he lost his footing. His underlings scattered or turned to stab him in the back, all the more brutally that he used to be, in all fairness, a cosmic asshole of a boss. He doesn’t remember feeling particularly upset. Or if he was, it barely registered among the sheer bewilderment he felt faced with the ruins of a body that used to be so dependable. Back into the mountains he went, weaker and clumsier than he had ever been as a child, and laden with newfound yearnings as urgent and throbbing as gaping wounds.

Albert spoke of a dignified death, and you would think Lupin’s sexual urges would lessen as winter and starvation started creeping on him. But over those slow, dark months, the thought that if he kept at it, he  _might_ actually end up dead with his pants around his ankles, started to morph from a grim joke and into a looming, grotesque possibility.

And he must have reached an interesting state of delirium that particular winter: he can’t tell how he felt about it at all. Hunger and lust grew and merged until he couldn’t tell them apart ( _He still can’t. He always feels both to some extent, like a broken alarm bell that fluctuates between the background and foreground of his thoughts_ ). The odd hybrid urge took over his mindscape, obliterated all feelings of fear, shame, rage and grief, like a river spilling over the floodplain. There was no limit to what made him hungry and aroused then. The sound of running water. The rustle of wind in the trees. The taste of snow in the air. The rhythm of his own breath. The light of dawn, how it bathed the world in mist and a rosy, flesh-like glow. How it got him up on trembling legs like an old magic spell, every day, how it kept finding new reserves of strength deep within him, how it drew him outside to search for food and water, again, again and again, until the season turned and he saw he would live to see the next spring.

He is always horny and starving, to some extent – he probably has to agree with Albert that there is something slightly off about him – and it’s a wonderful feeling he wouldn’t give away for the world.

“Hmph. Are you going to keep playing, or are you stalling because I am on to something and you are scared to admit it?”

Lupin scoffs back at Albert as he exits the highway and manoeuvers through another large roundabout and into a rundown industrial area. His grin soon turns wolfish.

“Just wondering why you find me so fascinating, is all. Now why would that be? Saaaaaaay. Never have I ever had fun fantasies involving the other gentleman on the line.”

The comeback is so seamless Albert must have seen this coming somehow.

“No? You are missing out: I fantasize about wringing your neck all the time.”

“Hey now,” Lupin says, frowning, “that’s not what I meant and you know it. This is dead suspicious. Now I know you definitely have the hots for me! Why else would you sacrifice a point?”

“Because you are so bad at this game that I have to lose points on purpose if I want to get even slightly drunk this evening. And god knows I deserve to be drunk for putting up with your nonsense. Why on earth would I be interested in you?”

“Duh. How about because I am smart, strong, good-looking and I have a cute face? You’d be crazy  _not_ to want me. Go ahead with your turn and we’ll see if you can bluff your way out of my next one.”

“Aren’t we full of confidence,” Albert mutters. Maybe it’s just Lupin, but he sounds almost amazed. “Fine, we’re pulling teeth now, I see how it is. Let’s see you worm your way out of  _that_ one.”

But then Lupin checks his phone again and cuts him short.

“Oh shit, you’re closer to the highway than I thought! Looks like we’ll have to finish this face to face, I’m just around the corner from you.”

“You mean you’re here?” Albert says with an audible start, like he forgot about the whole buried alive thing for a sec. “That’s… that’s great! Listen, I tried to escape through the back exit when the building collapsed. That’s the southern door, furthest end from the road. The doorframe fell inwards on my shoulder, and the shelf is on top of that and is trapping me in. Look for what’s left of the door, okay? You should find me that way. And stay on the line while you dig so I can warn you when you get close. Can you see the warehouse yet?”

“Roger that,” Lupin says, laughter bubbling up in his chest at Albert’s sudden case of relieved verbose. He can barely talk over him. “Yup… Gee, give me a sec here – there, yeah, I can see it now – wait, why’s there –“ And he has to blame Albert’s contagious excitement for his own sudden urge to babble, because when he takes in the sight of the warehouse and the laughter withers in his throat, he can’t shut his mouth on time “ –fuck .  _Fuck._ ”

“What? What’s wrong?”

Lupin swears once more under his breath and drives on, past the rubble and scraps of metal roofing from the collapsed warehouse, around another building and out of sight – but not before he sees the jagged maw of a digger stab into the ground in a shower of white dust. And not before one of the men in ill-fitting police uniforms looks up sharply at the sound of his motor and makes eye contact. He pulls on the handbrake and turns the ignition off. A brief wave of silence passes between them.

“Lupin? What’s going on? Answer me!”

Lupin’s face twists into a sharp scowl, and he briefly scrambles for an answer – considers lying – swears again instead.

“They’ve beaten us to it. The traffickers – the ones who set up the trap. They are digging for you.”

He hears Albert draw in a breath.

“How do you know it’s them”, he says, voice flat and thin.

“They sure aren’t legit public services,” he murmurs, going over the flash-freeze image of the scene in his head. “There are four of them, plus another one operating the digger. Three workmen and two cops, but their uniforms don’t fit them well, and they stick too close to each other, like they’re all part of the same crew. And they’re all hiding firearm.”

There’s the now-familiar scrapping sound on the other end of the line, Albert twisting in his small prison and struggling against his restraints in the dark.

“I… I can’t hear them. I can’t hear a thing from outside. Where are they?”

“They started searching from the North end. They are halfway through the building. Looks like they are planning to just upturn the whole thing.”

“D…Damn it, not now, not now,  _damn it!_ I... I can’t reach my gun, I can’t move, that damn shelf is in the way,” there are more scrambling sounds, a rattle, the breathless heaving of someone pushing back against an immovable object, then a series of dry coughs as Albert raises a cloud of dust in his frantic efforts. “Lupin, I can’t fight them back!”

He won’t get to do much fighting, gun or no gun, if they plan to skewer him through the guts with a digger and then shoot his brains, Lupin finds himself thinking. Talk about overkill. He is staring straight ahead, one hand still resting on the ignition key, counting the seconds since his eyes met those of the goon.

“Well, don’t just stand there, think of something!” Albert says in a hoarse whisper. “I don’t want to… L-look, hightail out of here first, if they have fake cops on the lookout they must have seen you. Then, that’s right, do what you said before, call the emergency services, or hell, send the police after them, I don’t care if I have to deal with them later. Just as long as someone gets me out!”

“I don’t think that’ll help,” Lupin replies – his voice sounds distracted to his own ears. “They must have gotten those uniforms from somewhere – and since the  _real_ cops haven’t lifted a finger yet, even though an entire building has blown up…”

“…they’ve bribed the local precinct to turn a blind eye,” Albert finishes for him. “Of course. Why stop at my team. Then… then there’s nothing...?…”

He trails off. There’s the faint thud of plastic hitting dust. The sound of Albert’s breathing shifts, like it’s coming from further away, like he has let the phone drop near his face, but he is looking straight up into the dark.

“Lupin. Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” There is no inflection left to his voice. He sounds drained. “Okay. I should...pass on some messages then. Probably. At least so the syndicate can wreck these guys after I’m gone. Heh. Guess I’m taking you up on that eulogy offer after all.”

He swallows thickly. When he speaks again, his voice sounds smaller.

“How… how close do you think they are now? How long do I have left?”

“Let me think,” Lupin says in the same casual tone from before. He pats around himself, finds his cigarette pack, though he doesn’t take out a smoke. He fiddles with the rear mirror with his other hand so he can look into his own eyes. He surveys the neutral expression on his face, the relaxed muscles around his eyes and mouth. Then he flashes his reflection a brief grin.

“Albert,” he says at last – hears in the accompanying rush of statics how the other’s face strains towards him. He saunters out of the car and stretches luxuriously in the fresh air of the morning.

“You have loads of time,” he continues. “I said I’d get you, remember? Look, I need to sort something out real quick, so don’t you worry about a thing, and I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

And before Albert’s protest can reach him, he hangs up the phone and chucks it onto the driver seat. He strolls towards the collapsed building, stretching his other arm above his head and whistling a radio tune.

When he turns the corner that separates him from the site of destruction, the fake cop is roughly where he expected him to be – halfway between the digger and Lupin’s car, hands on his hips in a poor imitation of casual swagger. His eyes narrow when he sees him. He juts his chin out in his direction and calls out.

“This is a restricted area, young man. Move along.”

“Oh come on, let’s not play that,” Lupin says, flashing him a grin – and making sure both his hands are in plain view. “You are as much a cop as I am a law-abiding citizen, so let’s get along, yes? It looks like you gentlemen could use some directions.”

The man tenses, fingers clenching briefly on the baton dangling from his utility belt, other hand inching towards the gun by his side.

“Listen kid, I’m not sure what you mean but…”

“If you’re looking for the Lupin heir that you’ve just blown up,” he interrupts, shrugging like it doesn’t really matter to him either way, “you are a little off mark. I can help you find him.”

The other workmen and fake cop have already stopped their digging to listen in, but at the accusation they drop all pretense and leap forward. Two of them draw their weapons. Lupin lets out one mocking “Meep!” of surprise and raises both hands above his head, smile still firmly planted on his face.

“Hey, hey, easy now! Do I look like I’m about to try something stupid?”

Slowly, he brings one hand down to his belt, retrieves his gun, holding it barrel-first between his index and forefinger, and drops it to the ground. He then makes a show of upturning his pockets, rolling up his sleeves to display his bare wrists, and even does a little twirl where he stands.

“Nothing in my hands, nothing up my sleeves, nothing hiding behind my back,” he says brightly. “You see you are in perfectly trustworthy company, so let’s not be at each other’s throats like barbarians. I want to talk business.”

“Business,” the fake cop repeats, deadpan. His hand is still holding the baton, but he is visibly more relaxed since Lupin dropped his gun. “And who might you be that I’d want anything to do with you?”

“Of course, where are my manners?” He has already turned his back on the bunch of them and lived, he figures – so he goes into a deep, theatrical bow complete with a flourish of his hand. “Lupin the Third, master thief and adventurer – soon to be anyway,” he amends with a grin and a wink as he straightens up. “My christening ceremony has been advanced a notch from what I had originally planned, but hey, I like surprises. I am here to boot out the current title holder and steal myself a legacy. You see how nicely our goals align.”

The mafia goon is looking a nice shade of confused at this stage. When he opens his mouth to interject, Lupin holds up a palm and keeps talking, projecting his voice loud and clear in the no man’s land between himself and the tight cluster of armed men:

“I feel I must warn you, from one crook to another, that you are about to eviscerate five millions euros at the very least with a digger. I can think of more lucrative ways to go about this, if you’ll lend an ear.”

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and cocks his head to the side, all friendly expectation. The other goons are muttering among themselves and trying to get the attention of their leader. “ _There wasn’t supposed to be any backup – who the hell’s that? Is he drunk?”_ Are a few of the stuff they whisper, in a voice they must think is too low for him to hear. The man in a cop’s uniform juts out his chin at him again.

“Well go on then. What’s that about five millions?”

“Excellent question! Bet you were told the guy you had to off was some kind of disciple in the Lupin organization, right? Important, but not an executive, too young to be really involved in anything? Thing is, he is actually the co-head of the whole shebang, so he comes with a bit of a life insurance. Emergency cash for anything from accidents to hostage situations, see? The rest of their profits gets fed back into their next operations, they run a tight ship and all that, but this much stays safe and sound somewhere. It’s all there in their ledger: I tell you, this guy, it’s crazy how he loves his paperwork.”

“And I suppose you know where that money is?”

“I wish”, Lupin says with an exasperated shrug. “The whole evisceration via digger thing would be less of a problem if I did. But just because they are accounting freaks doesn’t mean they are dumb enough to keep everything in writing. So we’ll just have to ask him directly.”

A ripple of agitation travels through the group at his words,  _Shit, no one told us the brat was worth five millions_ , someone at the back mutters, but the leader of the group straightens up to his full height –which is almost a head taller than Lupin, and he doesn’t consider himself a small man, so fair enough to boast about it he figures– and eyes him critically.

“I see. You must be part of his little network of scampering rats, then,” he jeers. “If you are trying to feed us some tale to buy your boss time to escape, I’m afraid you are late to the party.” He jerks his thumb behind his shoulder. “He is most likely dead and buried under that mess, god knows where.”

Lupin crosses his arms and huffs in annoyance.

“Okay, let’s set the record straight: first off, as a rule I am never late to parties, they only start when I get to them. That snotty jerk is sure as hell not my boss. And Not-My-Boss is alive and kicking, we were talking on the phone a minute ago. I also happen to know precisely where he is. So if you don’t believe me, why don’t we go and ask him instead? I haven’t been able to get the money’s hiding place out of him yet…”

He drifts off briefly to upturn his fingers, and loudly cracks his knuckles. He continues with a toothy grin.

“…but, between the six of us, I am sure we can get creative.”

The man’s eyebrows rise slowly to his cap as Lupin speaks. The beginning of a smile is playing at the corner of his lips.

“You sound like a man with a plan.”

“Hah, do I! Here’s the deal: I help you find your mark –saves you a full morning of digging around, you guys were way off. We slap him around a bit until he coughs up the five millions, plus his network of underlings and a couple other things I am going to need when I replace him.  _Then_ you can finish him off and go back to your boss to get your pay for a job well done. I go on to bag myself a criminal organization of illustrious ancestry, reshuffle the hierarchy a bit, and who knows? I might get back in touch later to offer you guys a job and a raise. Sounds good?”

The man turns away briefly and gives a little nod and a sign of his hand to his group.

“It’s a deal,” he says as he turns back to him, still smiling – and his hand still resting lightly on the handle of his gun. “But you’ll do your share of digging, and me and the boys will be keeping an eye on you. We wouldn’t want you questioning your loyalties or getting squeamish, would we?”

“Perish the thought,” Lupin giggles. “Well then, tally-ho gentlemen, time’s a-wasting! Leave the digger behind, we are doing precision work from now on. Say, have you got any coffee?”

He gestures for one of the workmen to hand him a shovel, and soon enough their makeshift team is heaving in the dust at the southern end of the collapsed building. Lupin makes time to initiate small talk in between sharp intakes of breath. The hired men usually operate back home in the Netherlands, it turns out – that explains why the smallest of them is a good half a head taller than Lupin – but they have been taking more and more jobs around Paris lately. Lupin seizes the opportunity to brush up on his Dutch. He gets informed that his grammar is atrocious and that he mixes up every other word with German, but his workmates switch to their mother tongue happily enough regardless. And the token effort does earn him some coffee.

“How long have you been planning on turning against that d’Andrésy fellow, then?”

Lupin takes a long sip and hands the thermos back, considering.

“We’ve never had what you would call a trusting relationship,” he says at last. “The guy has been trying to dig up dirt on me ever since we first ran into each other. Probably to blackmail me and keep me under his thumb. Don’t get into a game of never have I ever with him, by the way: he makes up rules and plays like an asshole.”

There’s a smatter of chuckles across the group, sparse but relaxed. The conversation pauses briefly as they encounter a larger slab of concrete that needs smashing to pieces, and then roll the freshly cut blocks out of the way, all the while making sure that the layers underneath remain as undisturbed as possible. Lupin keeps his eyes strained for a door or a doorframe even as he resumes chatting:

“So, really, it always came down to who would make the first move to bring about a big showdown. Plus, I like what I’ve heard of his ancestor so far. Let’s face it, I’ll have more fun with that sort of legacy than he ever will. Right, right, I can see it! See the door poking out? And that bit of shelf? He must be under that somewhere. Easy when you excavate those last bits, you don’t want it to fall in and crush him.”

“Would be a shame, after all the extra work,” one of the workmen agrees. “Is he going to be trouble when we get to him?”

“The shelf keeps him from reaching his gun. As long as you know his tricks, which I do, there’s nothing to worry about. Actually, he should be able to hear us by now. Hé, Albert!” He calls out, switching his accent to French. “Can you see us yet buddy? I made some new friends!”

This prompts more chuckles from the men around him, and no answer from below. But sure enough, after some more minutes of carefully prying away blocks of concrete, they get their first glimpses of Albert.

He is curled up awkwardly in a small nook in the rubble formed by the doorframe, half on his side and half splayed on his back. His right leg is sticking out at an uncomfortable-looking angle and trapped at the ankle under a door hinge. A set of metal shelves has fallen on his chest, most of its weight resting on the doorframe so that it forms the natural slope that must have protected him from the cave-in.

He is white as a sheet, though most of that is due to the concrete dust that covers him from head to toe, making his long coat look light grey instead of its usual moody black. With his hair chalked pure white and sticking out at odd angles, he looks every bit the mad scientist caught in a lab accident. He stares wordlessly up at Lupin, blinking rapidly in the sunlight.

“Aaaand good morning to you too!” Lupin says, leaning right into his frozen, staring face from the gaps in the shelves. “How’s the fresh air feeling? Mind if I search you a little?”

He reaches into his coat without waiting for an answer. The gun is stuck between a corner of the shelf and his ribs, but with some wriggling and from his better vantage point, Lupin manages to pry it free. He checks that it is fully loaded, pulls back the toggle-joint, prompting a satisfying “click” from the Luger, shoots at the ground once experimentally, then aims it straight at Albert’s face. The other’s eyes widen.

“Good news, it still works! It must have been a bitch to have that dig into your ribcage the whole time. You should thank me.”

There is a new ripple of laughter behind him. One of the men breaks from the group and stalks over to Albert’s exposed side.

“Yeah, where are your manners, punk?” He says, arming one foot to kick at him. “Thank the man.”

“Keep that leg where it is unless you want it blasted to pieces.” Lupin interrupts in a sharp voice and a suddenly very crisp Dutch – not that his fluency has magically improved, but he has spent the larger part of the digging time turning over and polishing the next few sentences in his head. The henchman freezes out of sheer instinct. “He knows he is screwed, he has nothing to lose. Give him one chance and he will take us all with him.”

The man takes an involuntary step back, eyeing Albert like he might be venomous.

“You bloody said he was unarmed.”

“I said I could handle him because I know his tricks,” Lupin corrects. “He has a mean bite, and he has inherited some nasty toys for situations like this, so you all better stay sharp. For instance: say he breaks down under torture, and asks for a last cigarette before he tells us everything? You  _do not_ give him a cigarette. See –”

Gun still aimed firmly at Albert’s forehead, he reaches once more into his coat and fishes out a pack of cigarettes. He twirls it between his fingers and shows it off to his audience, huddled together and leaning warily towards him.

“Normal-looking pack, right? However, most of the cigs in there are fake and shortened, with an explosive and a trigger hidden underneath. The connection is cut off by the few  _real_ cigarettes jammed in the middle, but take a single one out,” he does so with a flick of his index and forefinger, “and well – catch!”

He lobs the pack at their faces – actually sees one of them hold out his hands for it in reflex – and immediately turns back to the lone henchman on his other side to shoot him through the forehead. The explosion rings behind him in tandem with the bang and recoil from the gun. Smoke streams past his shoulders, stinging with heat. Screams rise, as much in shock as in pain.

The bomb is more smoke than blast. It gives off one hell of a stench, an eye-watering monstrosity that is sufficient to shake off most pursuers, but it’s not designed to do lasting damage to a person.

But.

It’s also very much not meant to be thrown straight at someone’s face.

So when Lupin pulls up the cover of his jacket to cover his mouth and turns back to the larger group of goons, he doesn’t flinch in shock at the red mess of their faces, the burned fingers clutching at their own eyes in horror, the panicked swears and hands struggling to reach for their firearm. A bullet flies above his head, but he takes a moment to aim unperturbed. It isn’t his first time firing out of the Luger – he and Albert have had shooting practices together and have swapped guns on a dare – so his hand doesn’t shake as he takes them down with his four remaining shots, one by one like bottles at a fair.

They collapse with surprisingly little sound. Or maybe most of that is drowned by the ringing in his ears, from the explosion, from the roar of his own blood, or maybe from the broken bits of Dutch that swim haphazardly through his brain, like he forgot to ask them something while he had the chance, and now… His eyes shudder shut as a gust of wind brushes against his flushed face and clears the reeking smoke, and as he waits for all that white noise to lessen.

He is brought back to the present by the sound of Albert shifting next to him. Lupin snaps his eyes back open to beam down at him.

“Well! That cut it close,” he says brightly. “How’re you feeling?”

“I…” Albert’s eyes flicker to the smoking Luger before focusing on Lupin. It’s hard to tell whether the look on his face is accusatory or merely astonished. “What the hell was that? My cigarette pack doesn’t explode!”

“No, but mine does. Here, you can have yours back.” He replies, closing his fist and opening it again to reveal an identical pack. He reaches down to put it back in Albert’s coat pocket where he found it. “Stay still just a little longer, I’ll get that shelf off of you.”

It’s a hefty chunk of metal, and it may be wiser to cut it into smaller pieces with the buzzsaw first. But, he figures, he has plenty of adrenaline coursing through his system now and nowhere to spend it –and. He isn’t that keen on leaving Albert alone again, even for just the short time it would take to run around the corner – maybe he feels a little bad that he cut the call and broke his promise to him. So he goes at it with good old-fashioned muscle power, propping himself on all fours under the shelf and heaving it up inch by painful inch, until Albert can crawl from under the doorframe and out of the way. Lupin raises a cloud of dust when he drops it back into the rubble, making him instantly almost as filthy as Albert.

“Boys, that weighs a ton!” He whines as he rubs at a crick in his neck and stretches his back. “How’s your shoulder? And your ankle? Can you stand?”

He is reaching out a hand even as he speaks. Albert takes it wordlessly. He sways a little on his feet, so Lupin presses a steadying hand to his chest and gives his coat and hair a few pats to brush away the concrete dust. He only succeeds in making it all fly into his own face. He sneezes once, twice, and then it morphs into laughter, so sudden and loud he has to clench both fists into Albert’s coat to keep himself upright. The other thief stares back at him numbly, like his eyes haven’t quite adjusted to the light.

It lasts one beat too long, and then longer still – Lupin realizes belatedly that his fingers are gripping Albert’s coat so hard they are locked in place. If he tries to pry them open, his hands might shake. So he just bumps their foreheads together and grins goofily right into his face.

“How was  _that_ for a daring rescue, huh? Are you madly in love with me yet?”

Albert blinks and bristles, as though shaking himself awake.

“You could at least check that they’re really dead!” He retorts at long last, wrenching himself from the death grip and making his way to the goons on the ground.

His walk is a little lopsided as he tries to put less weight on his injured ankle, but he otherwise looks amazingly unhurt for someone who just crawled from under a pile of ruins. He circles the bodies warily before giving them a few hard nudges with his foot. He nods to himself, and then crouches down to check their pulse and look through their pockets. Soon enough he has pictures of all the cards and rumpled pieces of paper the hired men had on them, and face shots stored in his phone.

“I’m done here,” he says to Lupin as he straightens up. “Is your car parked close?”

Now, since Albert walked away on him, Lupin must admit to feeling unfairly dissed. However, his annoyance fades when he sees the drawn lines on Albert’s face, the naked exhaustion in his eyes. He has lost his trademark shades at some point during the heist. It makes his face look thinner than usual.

“Just around the corner,” he assures him. Struck by inspiration, he saunters up to his side and slinks Albert’s uninjured arm over his own shoulders, winking when Albert gives him a bewildered look. “Come on, you invalid, let’s get you home.”

They make their way through the uneven terrain in silence, making a brief stop to pick up Lupin’s gun where he dropped it earlier. Only when Albert is slumped in the passenger seat does he address Lupin again.

“When did you think up that trick? Using my gun, swapping the cigarette pack, the language thing?”

Lupin hums in consideration as he searches through his backpack, dumping various tools onto the back of the car.

“Not too sure myself,” he finally shrugs. “I had the broad lines sketched out sometime before I cut our call. Or a bit after? I ironed out the details while I was digging for you.” He glances up at him with a sudden grin. “How did you find it? Was that some top-notch improvisation acting or what?”

Albert huffs quietly.

“You sounded convincing when you were plotting to torture me to death, I will give you that.”

“Aw, it’s all thanks to you, you make it so easy.” He finally pulls out a liter of water and a handful of squashed energy bars, and hands the lot to Albert. “Breakfast?”

His partner reaches for the water greedily, and drinks in long gulps while Lupin drives them back onto the highway. He then sinks even further into his seat, curling around his bad leg and propping the other against the dashboard. He spends most of the journey home looking out the window as he munches slowly on a cereal bar, only giving directions when Lupin prompts him. Lupin finds himself stealing glances his way every now and then: it’s weirdly out of character for Albert to be this pensive. There is a weary, far-away look on his face, like he is daydreaming.

They get the car to a different storage unit near quai Voltaire, where sure enough, Albert has a whole apartment to himself on the fourth floor by the Seine. As they get inside, the familiar surroundings seem to give Albert a small energy boost: he walks straight from the doorway to the kitchen, gets a pot of coffee going, and shuts himself in the bathroom while it brews.

Left to his own devices, Lupin rids himself of as much concrete dust as he can using the kitchen sink and a hand towel. He then takes a moment to look around: the living room is large and well lit, with a balcony, an open-plan kitchen and a cream corner sofa facing a large TV screen. It all gives off the vibe of having been professionally furnished, and then left untouched since Albert inherited the place. It manages to be both impersonal and a little bit chaotic: stained coffee mugs are piling up in the sink, and the coffee table is overflowing with loose sheets of papers covered in coded scribbles, like Albert has neglected to clean up after himself in the last stages of planning his heist.

It’s funny, in a sense, how unremarkable the place looks: Albert is such a walking fashion statement himself, with his sweeping black coats and bizarrely styled hair, and those goddamn shades he keeps on at night. Lupin was half expecting to see edgy posters on every wall and weird goth paraphernalia cluttering the shelves. Maybe he saves that for his bedroom.

He thinks of pushing his explorations there, but he is getting more hungry than curious now, and there’s nothing edible in sight. He checks the fridge, and lets out a disgruntled sound when he finds it empty except for some milk and, of all things, pickles. He is methodically opening all of the cupboards and drawers when Albert reappears, rubbing at his damp hair with a towel while his other hand fiddles with his phone. He raises a tired eyebrow at him.

“Are you done snooping?”

“Don’t freak out just yet, but I think you might have been robbed,” Lupin replies, sticking his nose into one last cupboard to examine a forgotten pack of muesli that he suspects was already there when Albert moved in. “How does that even work? Have you eaten anything this month?”

He gets his answer when he peers into the bin and finds it full of ready meals and takeaway wrappings. Well. What a waste of a perfectly good stove. 

“Do you have snacks in your room? I’ll go check,” he goes on undeterred.

Albert shakes his head and pours himself coffee without answering. The lack of protest is concerning enough that Lupin pauses on his way to the corridor to give his partner a better look. He has changed into cotton pants and a tank top, baring a purple, wedge-shaped bruise on his shoulder. His ankle is red and swollen, and there is a distinct limp to his walk as he goes to the freezer to retrieve a pack of ice. His eyes are a little unfocused, probably from a mix of tiredness and painkillers.

“Sorry, I need to sort out a few things,” he says distractedly. “I’ll be with you soon.”

Lupin doesn’t know what to answer -this is way more civil than how they usually talk to each other- so he backs away from the situation and marches to the bedroom.

It is dimly lit, only the faintest rays of light filtering through the blinds. It’s tidy aside from the rumpled bed and the stack of clothes draped over a chair. It is disappointingly empty of snacks, too, unless Albert keeps them all under key in his drawers. Lupin could pick the locks, but there is a high chance they are booby trapped. He figures they have been through enough explosions for one morning, so he doesn’t risk it.

He does find posters, though, most of them from obscure music bands, and more interestingly, some workout kit in a corner: stacked weights, a punching bag and gloves, a fencing sword and mask. Too bad his arms hurt too much to play around with them.

He clearly isn’t going to be fed any time soon, either; he might as well try and finish his night. Lupin kicks off his shoes and throws himself across the mattress, stretching his limbs luxuriously to remove the last traces of soreness from digging through the rubble. For one second, he feels his heartbeat all the way to his fingertips, and it strikes him how incredible it is that he is  _there_ , alive and comfortable, when less than two hours ago he had five guns aimed at him. When just one hour drive away his enemies are lying in a cooling puddle of their own blood.

Anguished faces flash in front of his eyes – he stares back even as he tenses.

_Tough luck guys. Should’ve picked a safer game or a stronger team._

The thought makes him crane his neck back towards Albert, through the open door and across the corridor. Amazingly enough, he hasn’t made it to his own sofa yet. Instead he is sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of his living room. Maybe he is enjoying the empty space, after all the time he has spent trapped and buried. The coffee mug is on the floor in front of him. He is rubbing the ice pack over his swollen ankle; every now and then his cold fingers come up to trace distracted patterns across the bruise on his shoulder. All the while, the growling voice of a much older man rises from his lips as he barks orders into the phone.

 That’s Albert for you, isn’t it? He thinks a little ruefully. Trust the guy to walk out of a claustrophobic death trap and straight back into accounting.

It has freaked him out on more than one occasion, if he is completely honest. How pugnacious this white collar thief can get, even when he is clearly not getting any fun out of the deal. It drives him up the wall whenever Albert bests him with that cold dispassionate look in his eyes. Like Lupin’s been out raced, and when he goes to check the rival car, he finds it’s been running on an empty tank the whole way. Not that it’s the right metaphor exactly, but it… it almost makes him question things sometimes. About himself. The things he does, and doesn’t. What’s out there he would fight tooth and nail for, besides his own bare survival. How long  _he’d_  last driving on that empty tank, if it were him, if he had some bigger project to aim for that wouldn’t get to be exciting all the time. Or something.

Albert switches back to his normal voice for a quick briefing call with Gaston, and then Lupin counts three more impersonations including that of an eighty year old man. He is quarantining a number of his operating branches and cordoning off some of his informants until he can pinpoint the mole. He also spends some time arguing about budget and transaction deadlines. He presses harshly against the bridge of his nose after that particular call, and downs the rest of his coffee before punching in yet another number.

“Renard,” he says with an exasperated sigh. He has gone back to a more comfortable range, though not exactly his own voice. “Good to hear from you, I’ve just been dealing with a lot of imbeciles. The job has gone south. I’ll need you to cast some nets to contain the damage.”

He rattles off the events of the night, the faked meeting with the traffickers, the explosion in the building, the bought precinct, the hired goons dead in the ruins.

“We can’t have the cops tracing this back to us, so keep an eye on the investigation and make sure there’s no usable evidence. DNA, fingerprints, ballistic markings, the whole lot. Liaise with Gaston if you need anything forged, but I doubt it will come to that. My guess is they’ll write this off as two gangs settling scores and won’t look too hard. I know, police ethics these days, how outrageous.”

He smiles briefly, and pauses to listen to whatever is going on on the other end of the line.

“No, never mind the precinct for now. We are going to be low on staff for a while, I don’t want you to expose yourself. We are more likely to find who planned this through the hired hands. Yeah. I’ll send you some mugshots and IDs the usual way, see if you can dig up anything. And I’ll send a list of the informants I need tailed. I want a  _long_  chat with whomever tried to get me killed.”

Lupin’s eyes drift shut, lulled by familiar technical details, but his attention perks up at the mention of his name.

“No, I’m alright, Lupin took care of them and got me out. ... He wasn’t, I woke him up. Yes, pretty much. Hell if I know, sort of bluffed his way right through them, I… Yeah, six months or so. You’ve met him once. Black short hair, sports clothes, chatterbox? What? Of  _course_ that wasn’t me in disguise! What the hell?”

His aggravated frown softens as he listens to the phone. He answers more questions in a low voice, rubs at his eyes and hair briefly.

“Yeah. I guess he is.”

And just like that Lupin would pay good money to hear both ends of the conversation. Unfortunately, the call only goes on for a few more minutes, and even that is just some details to set up their next meeting. After he hangs up, Albert puts the phone on the floor next to his empty mug. He stares at them both blankly for a while like he is contemplating curling into a ball next to them and going to sleep right where he is.

At long last he drags himself upright and walks to his room, where he is greeted by the sight of an intruder sprawled diagonally across the whole breadth of his bed like a starfish clad in jeans.

“Hey. That’s mine,” he states, clearly too tired to come up with a better quip.

Lupin scoots obligingly over to make room for him. Albert continues to act strangely: instead of throwing a fit and demanding Lupin move to the sofa, he lies down next to him like it’s a thing they do all the time. Not that he relaxes, per se. He is staring up at the ceiling, his whole silhouette a tense line in the semi-darkness, fingers twitching by his sides as though still wrestling with figures and deadlines. Lupin lets out a long sigh.

“I can’t sleep if you keep fidgeting over there. What’s up now? Is your leg hurting you?”

Albert’s hand stills. He blinks, as though the question has caught him off guard.

“It’s not that bad,” he says at last. “I’ll get it checked tomorrow. Well, later today.”

He settles a little more comfortably into the mattress. His eyes almost shudder shut. But then his teeth clench and more words come pouring out unbidden.

“It’s just… Everything else is going to be a pain. We’ll have to shut off a lot of our operations for a while. And bribe and threaten a score of idiots to keep them in line when money stops pouring in. And with my luck, whoever betrayed me might try something desperate before I find and crush them.”

“Your luck could have been a lot worse today, actually.” Lupin yawns. “Money will sort itself. Chill out. We’ll throw you a survival party after you’ve had some rest.”

“Right. You owe me drinks.”

They glance at each other with twin snorts of laughter.

“What was the score in the end?” Lupin asks.

“You owe me seven,” Albert replies readily. “And you have to get another twenty-two for yourself. You, my friend, have a date with some serious alcohol poisoning.”

“Twenty-t…?” Lupin chokes. “Wait, did you actually count those dumb gay drinks? You bastard!”

Albert hunches over snickering. It’s brief, that self-satisfied mirth of his, before the corners of his mouth pull downward again. It makes his jabs doubly annoying, in Lupin’s opinion. There’s no fun in wiping the smugness off his rival’s face if he just becomes depressed all by himself one minute later. He hums a little under his breath, trying to guess Albert’s train of thought inside that gloomy mindspace where most of his planning seems to happen. He was talking about being a target for more attacks.

“Are you going to be abroad for a while then?” He guesses. “Until this blows over.”

“Probably?” Albert frowns. “It will only make me lose more influence here, though, and it will be expensive. Depends on what contingency plan Gaston and I can come up with to keep us afloat. I just hope I don’t have to hide in goddamn Scotland again.”

He seems to consider before returning the question:

“What about you? There won’t be any job for a while. Will you go someplace else?”

A slow grin spreads over Lupin’s face. He thinks of beach toys piled in car trucks and pretty, annoyed women stuck in traffic jams. He thinks back to old scam tour guides, to time spent hanging out in sun-drenched historical ruins overrun with stray cats, of nice valuable trinkets he hasn’t had time to steal yet. He briefly sees himself dragging a disgruntled Albert through tiny, obscure museums and to good ice cream places.

“I wanna go back to Italy,” he decides. “Why don’t you come with? It’s the perfect time of the year. And I had some easy heists lined up that got postponed. Tell you what: if you need the cash, I’ll let you help for a share. I know a few sellers who will still do business with me.”

“Italy?” Albert says, turning to him with widened eyes. “You have a network there?”

“Didn’t I mention it? You’re not the only one who used to have a bit of a criminal empire.” He shrugs exaggeratedly and wiggles his eyebrows at the other thief. “So many questions, right? Too bad the game’s over.”

There’s a long silence as Albert mulls things over from his side of the bed.

“… Fine. I’ll consider it.”

They both grow quiet again. It’s not an awkward silence. Lupin feels compelled to break it nonetheless. He stretches with a groan and folds his arms behind his head.

“You know, I was thinking,” he says casually to the ceiling. “If I had saved anyone else from half a dozen mafia goons at the peril of my own life, I bet they would be falling over themselves trying to thank me right about now. But,” he shrugs again. “I guess virtue will have to be its own reward and all that.”

Albert scoffs loudly and straightens.

“Virtue my ass.”

He turns to gaze down at Lupin. Studying him, almost. The sunrays that filter through the blinds draw thin tiger stripes across his face and in his hair. There are yellow specks in his eyes. Lupin holds still, his own careless smile a light pressure on his lips, watching him obliquely but not quite meeting his stare.

“Here,” Albert says at long last. “You are clearly desperate for it.”

He is cautious when he leans into him, despite the set tone of his voice. It’s like he expects one of them to change their mind. Lupin has to tilt his face up to close the last inch between them and brush their lips together. Finally, Albert pushes back into a proper kiss. There’s a corner of Lupin’s mind where he mentally pumps his fist up in the air,  _called it, called it! You do dig me!_ But he only brings his hand up to cup the side of his face. His cheek and jawline feel smooth under his fingers, while Lupin is already getting stubbly from rolling out of bed with no time to shave. Maybe Albert can’t grow facial hair easily. He’ll have to find out and tease him about it.

The stubble doesn’t seem to bother the other man, at least. He drags his lips to the corner of Lupin’s mouth and down to brush against his chin, glancing warily up at him before moving back to kiss him again. Lupin hums low in his throat and digs his fingers into Albert’s hair in encouragement – it’s soft, and a little damp from the shower. There are a few wet, darker patches on his top. He smells of soap and coffee.

He is thinking of dragging Albert down next to him – the half-sitting position forces him to crane his neck at an awkward angle – but the other beats him to it. He grabs hold of Lupin’s shoulders and clambers over him to lie on his other side, where he can prop himself on his valid arm. Elbows and knees dig into Lupin in the process, seeping warmth deep into his nerves. It spreads all the way to his neck when Albert makes a small sound against his mouth, settling flush against Lupin, legs tangled together.

Two more kisses in, he has made up his mind that Albert is really fucking pretty. By the fourth he is pushing back eagerly with his tongue, trying to pry his mouth open, while his hands roam down to sneak under his tank top. Too fast, too soon, it turns out – as it often does. Albert breaks the kiss with an exasperated snarl and bats his hands away, muttering something unintelligible into Lupin’s shoulder. He even makes a half hearted attempt at kneeing him in the gut. The prick.

Lupin brings his hands back up to rub Albert’s scalp and the nape of his neck in silent apology. The other thief’s shoulders slump, like the strings holding them tense have been cut, and he bows his head to allow for better access. Lupin gathers him close and keeps rubbing soothing patterns into his skull, enjoying the feeling of Albert’s hair tickling his lips and nose, the way his fingers curl reflexively against Lupin’s jacket. His breathing goes gradually deeper and slower.

It’s all very nice, and Lupin would say they are off to a good start again. Except when he tilts Albert’s chin up for yet another kiss, he realizes that his partner has fallen asleep.

He watches Albert’s slack face in quiet bafflement, long enough to make sure this isn’t some weird joke. He then releases his chin and drapes one arm around the other’s waist with a sigh. Well.  _He_ is feeling very much awake now. And hungry.

There should be some decent bakery and market nearby. Or he could drive to the market in Bastille, enjoy the hustle and bustle of the morning rush, chat up people at the stalls. He’ll scout out brunch material. Fresh bread and sausages with herbs, good eggs and vegetables to make a spring omelette. Except he is also craving Japanese food a little. He could find a specialist supermarket and go from there instead.  Sweet omelette, rice mixed with a raw egg, salad of small fish, unagi if he can find some decent eels, marinated vegetables and seaweed, lots of Miso soup with tofu – the Miso soup might help Albert rehydrate. Or maybe he will go all out and make a bit of everything.

Albert makes some funny snuffling sound against him. Lupin grins and buries his face in the soft mane of his hair.

It’s fine, right here, for now. He will wait a few more minutes before he goes out shopping. 

 


End file.
